Hi guys!
It is Monday and I am pretty sure by now you all know what that means. Yes, exactly, there is a new vegetarian recipe coming your way and really love today's pick. I have already featured a Goop recipe in an earlier blog and today, I want to share their recipe for Lentil "Meatballs" with you. The recipe takes a little time, but it is super easy and the result is perfect. Here is the link to the recipe: http://goop.com/recipes/dinner/lentil_meatballs
I will write the steps I took down for you as the original recipe adds oven-roasted tomatoes and a basil oil to accompany the lentil balls.
1) Cook the lentils according to packet directions. One cup of raw lentils will give you two cups once their cooked. Grate the parmesan.
2) Preheat the oven to 170°C (375°F). Cut one onion into fine pieces, heat some olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Sauté for a minute. Add the garlic (I omitted it) and dried herbs along with a pinch of salt and pepper and sauté for another minute or two until soft and fragrant.
3) Place the lentils along with the tomato paste and a little olive oil in a food processor or blend with a handheld blender until smooth.
4) Beat the eggs in a bowl. Add the ricotta or greek yoghurt and mix until combined. Add the lentils and mix until smooth. Add the onion-herb-mix for the pan, the parmesan and bread crumbs and season generously with salt and pepper. Mush together until combined.
5) Roll the mixture into balls. Place the balls on a baking tray and bake for 8-10 minutes, then turn and bake them for 5 more minutes.
Yield: about 32 meatballs
Active preparation time: 30 minutes
Total preparation time: about 1 hour and 15 minutes (30 minutes cooking time for lentils included)
Here's how my "meatballs" look like:
As I said a little earlier on, I didn't add the oven-roasted tomatoes or basil oil, but I opted to but my meatballs and serve them over a big bowl of salad. The lentils will give you a healthy load of protein and carbs to get you through until your next meal - without the fat ground beef from "normal" beef patties would add.
Here's how my lunch today looks like:
The "meatballs" have a really nice flavour from the roasted dried herbs and a slight hint of tomato sweetness from the tomato purée which also gives them their reddish color. I used regular green lentils, nothing fancy like puy lentils or beluga lentils. These are such a great vegetarian alternative to the classic beef pattie and I am going to make them again some time very soon. The leftover I've got might be perfect to put in a sandwich in slices and take for lunch with me.
Have a great start of the week and, of course, have fun trying!
Hi guys!
As I've told you a few times, I live in Switzerland. And although I don't normally cook a lot of typical Swiss dishes, I have a soft spot for carrot cake and it happens to be very popular here in Switzerland. It is not the same as the American version, but I hope you will fall in love with it as quickly as I did years ago. The recipe is from a Swiss cookbook called "Aus Schweizer Küchen" which translates as "From Swiss kitchens". Here's the recipe:
1 organic lemon
300g (10 oz) carrots
5 eggs
300g (10 oz; 1 + 1/3 cups) granulated sugar
300g (10 oz; 2 + 3/4 cups) almond meal
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
pinch of cloves
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 eggwhite
3 tablespoons apricot jam
150g (5 oz; 1 cup) confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Wash the lemon and grate 1 tablespoon of zest. Press two tablespoons of juice for the glaze. Peel the carrots and grate them finely.
2) Split the eggs. Combine the yolks with sugar and lemon zest for about 5 minutes until a thick creme forms. Mix the almond meal and grated carrots through the egg-sugar-creme.
3) Beat the eggwhites until very stiff and fold them in. I like to roughly fold in 1/3 of the eggwhites at first as it will losen the dough and then carefully fold in the remaining eggwhites.
4) Grease a 24cm (9.4 inches) round spring tin. Fill with the dough and bake at 160°C (320°F) (the temperature is lower than the one you've preheated your oven to!) for 60 minutes. Let the cake cool until it is about lukewarm.
5) When the cake has reached hand temperature, spread the entire cake with the apricot jam. You might need a little more than 3 tablespoons. Let the cake cool completely.
6) For the glaze, seperate one egg. Mix the eggwhite with confectioner's sugar and lemon juice, then beat with a handheld mixer until a thick, glossy creme develops. Cover the entire cake with the glazing.
Active preparation time: about 40 minutes
Total preparation time: about 1 hour and 40 minutes
© Copyright: Marianne Kaltenbach, "Aus Schweizer Küchen", p. 28
Here's how my cake looks:
The glazed cake in its entirety:
And the inside:
I know I have said this a lot lately, but I just adore this cake. The almond and sugar turns into an almost marzipan-like texture and wonderfully matches the juicy carrot. If you like your cake not as much on the sweet, but a little more on the savoury side, try substituting hazelnut meal for almond meal. Carrot cake will take some time to bake and to glaze, but the result is worth the time.
Have fun trying and enjoy your weekend!
Hi guys!
It's monday and i'll share another meat free recipe with you. As the sun has finally found its way to Switzerland the past few days and you can almost smell spring, I wanted to try a rather light, fresh and summery recipe. I came across the following recipe for rocket pesto in Donna Hay's latest book "simple dinners". Here's the recipe:
400g (14 oz) spaghetti
120g (4.2 oz; about 4 cups) rocket
1 garlic clove
80ml (2.5 fl.oz; 1/3 cup) extra virgin olive oil
40g (1.4 oz) pine nuts
30g (a little less than 1/2 cup; 1 oz) grated parmesan
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
salt and pepper
1) Bring water to boil, season with salt and cook the spaghetti according to packet directions, normally between 8 and 10 minutes.
2) Cut the rocket in small strips, press the garlic. Toss in a bowl with the olive oil, grated parmesan and lemon zest.
3) Heat a pan over high heat and roast the pine nuts for about two minutes until browned all over. Be careful when toasting them as they'll turn brown really fast at one point.
4) Add the pine nuts, season to taste with salt and pepper. Drain the spaghetti and mix with the pesto.
Serves: 4
Active preparation time: 7 minutes
Total preparation time: about 15 minutes, depending on how fast you can bring the pasta water to the boil.
© Copyright: Donna Hay "Simple Dinners", p. 46.
Here's how mine looks:
I know I've said this a few times, but I really really love this recipe - I am a huge rocket lover, though. The rocket adds a nice, peppery note that beautifully contrasts the saltiness of the parmesan, creaminess of olive oil and hint of acidity of lemon zest. It certainly is a summer-evening dish, but I love how the bright green lights up my kitchen on the first days of spring already. This is not your typical pesto as the rocket is cut into fine strips instead of being mixed into a purée-like paste, but I love this for a change and you are getting every single level of flavour out of this dish nevertheless.
Have fun trying and maybe you'll get to enjoy the first rays of spring sunshine as well!
Hi guys!
It is saturday morning and the weekend should start right so I decided to fight the grey, cloudy weather outside and bring some warmth to the kitchen with baking. I had a few pears in the fruit bowl that needed to be used for something so I tried another recipe from Cynthia Barcomi's "Backbuch" that I've had on my mind a few weeks now. It is ginger pear bread.
Here's the recipe:
260g (9 oz; 2 + 2/3 cups) all-purpose flour
125g (4.4 oz; 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons powdered ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 generous pinch nutmeg
1 generous pinch cloves
250g (8 fl. oz; 1 cup) plain yoghurt
150ml (2/3 cup; 5 fl. oz) vegetable oil
1 teaspoon sugar cane syrup or golden syrup
1 egg
1 large pear
75g (2.6 oz) raisins
75g (2.6 oz) walnuts
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Cut the pear in small pieces, chop the walnuts and raisins.
2) In a bowl, measure the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, bicarb, ginger, salt, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon and mix to combine. In a second bowl, mix the egg, yoghurt, vegetable oil and syrup.
3) Add the fluid ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined. Carefully fold in the pear pieces, raisins and walnuts.
4) Grease a loaf tin or line with baking paper and fill with the dough. Bake for 55 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Let the bread cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning it onto a cooling rack.
Yield: 1 bread
Active preparation time: about 15 minutes
Total preparation time: 1h 10 minutes
© Copyright: Cynthia Barcomi "Backbuch", p. 87
Here's how mine turned out:
I really love the combination of the spices and sweet pear. And I love fruit in cakes or breads at the moment. This is incredibly comforting and just the perfect thing to have a slice of with a hot cup of tea whenever it's a dark and grey outside.
Have fun trying and have a great weekend!
Hi guys!
It is monday so I absolutely wanted to make sure to give you a recipe for Meat Free Monday this week. The weather today was really cold so all I wanted for dinner was a plate of hot, steaming, deliciously creamy soup. I remembered a recipe for honey-roasted parsnip soup from a Donna Hay magazine issue I'd seen a while ago and I wanted to try it, so this is what I did for today.
Here's the link to the recipe: http://donnahay.realviewdigital.com/default.aspx?iid=36556&startpage=page0000107
And here's how it looks:
I took the liberty of making a few slight adjustments to the recipe to, in my opinion, enhance the taste. Donna Hay doesn't mention any seasoning other than honey for roasting, sour cream and fried sage leaves to serve, so I added salt and pepper to taste to begin with. I omitted the sour cream to make the soup a little healthier and opted for a few dashes of lemon juice. The reason for this is simple: if you have a rather sweet dish, you are always looking for some kind of acid component to balance the sweetness and punctuate it at the same time. That rule does not apple for baking, but any cooked meal works according to it.
Other than that, I love this soup as it is luciously creamy and intense in flavour. The perfect comfort food for cold weather outside.
Have fun trying!
Hi guys!
The weekend has just started and I love nothing more than a good cake to ring it in. At the moment, I love cakes that have a little fruit inside so I wanted to try this recipe for an applesauce cake from Cynthia Barcomi's "Backbuch" or "baking book" in its translation.
Here's the recipe:
185g (6.5 oz; 1 + a little less than 1/3 cup) all-purpose flour
70g (2.5 oz) cornstarch
1 teaspoon cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
125g (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
200g (7 oz; a little less than 1 cup) granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon sugar cane syrup or golden syrup
250ml (8 fl. oz; 1 cup) applesauce
110g (4 oz) walnuts
75g (2.6 oz) dried cranberries, optional
75g (2.6 oz) dried raisins
100g (3.5 oz) white or dark chocolate, optional
1) Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Mix the flour, cornstarch, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt together. Chop the chocolate and add if you're using it. Chop the walnuts, raisins and cranberries if you're using them.
2) Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl with a hand mixer or a kitchen machine until pale and creamy, about 6 minutes. Add the eggs and syrup and beat until the whole mixture is very fluffy. Mix in the applesauce. Now add the combined dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. At last, fold in the walnuts, raisins and cranberries.
4) Grease a loaf cake tin or springform tin (26 cm or 10 inches) or line with baking paper and fill in the dough. Bake for 50-60 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
5) Let the cake rest for about 10 minutes before turning it onto a cooling rack. Dust with a little confectioner's sugar before serving.
© Copyright: Cynthia Barcomi "Backbuch", p. 129.
Here's how mine turned out:
By adding applesauce to the cake, you ensure it stays wonderfully moist and has a hint of apple sweetness with every single bite. I added walnuts and raisins to mine but left out chocolate and cranberries as I thought two added ingredients were more than enough and anything else would not have made this cake any better. My add-ins of choice are certainly a rather safe bet, but if you are more of risk-takers than I am, feel free to add as many thing as you like.
This cake is very nice and the perfect accompaniment for a cup of tea or coffee in the afternoon, but it would make a sunday brunch or breakfast certainly even better.
Have fun trying!
Hi guys!
I am so sorry, it's been a while since I've last posted a recipe. Times have been a little busy but I'll be trying hard to make it up to you starting now! I have found a recipe for a vegetarian bolognese sauce about three weeks ago and I was very anxious to give it a try as the cook it's from, Tim Mälzer from Germany, normally would describe himself as a devoted omnivore. When he said his recipe would be as close as possible to a regular bolognese sauce without using the regular meat substitute of tofu, I started listening and tried the recipe myself two days later. For all the german readers, here's the link to the recipe: http://www.daserste.de/unterhaltung/koch-show/tim-maelzer-kocht/rezept-19012013-vegetarische-bolognese-100.html
Here's the recipe in english:
500g (1 pound) mixed mushrooms (mushrooms, shiitake or oyster mushroom)
2 carrots
2 celery stalks
1 large onion
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
1 twig rosmary
4 twigs thyme
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cans crushed tomatoes (about 400g each; 14 oz)
salt
pepper
sugar
1 teaspoon paprika
400g (14 oz) spaghetti
freshly grated parmesan to serve
1) Preheat the oven to 50°C (122°F). Cut the mushrooms in really small cubes or process them in a kitchen machine until pretty fine. They should have a size similar to ground beef. Put the mushrooms on a baking tray and stick in the oven for at least 30 minutes to dry. They will turn pretty dark and their flavour will intensify.
2) Peel the carrots and cut them in very fine cubes and proceed with the celery stalks and onion the same way.
3) When the mushrooms are done, heat the oil in a large pan over high heat. Add the mushrooms and roast them for a few minutes. Add the onion and vegetables and cook at medium heat for about 4 minutes. Add the bay leaves. Cut the rosemary and thyme very fine and add as well. Add the tomato paste and crushed tomatoes along with a can's worth of water. Add sugar, salt and pepper to taste being careful not to season too heavily because as the sauce cooks and reduces, the flavour intensifies. Let the sauce come to a boil, reduce the heat to medium low and let it bubble away for 25 minutes.
4) In the meantime, heat a large pot with water, add the spaghetti and a little salt once the water is boiling rapidly and cook according to packet directions. Drain the pasta and serve with the bolognese sauce and freshly grated parmesan.
Serves: 4 according to the original recipe, 6 if you're me
Active preparation time: about 30 minutes for the chopping part (a kitchen machine is very useful with the mushrooms!) and 15 minutes for the sauce, so 45 minutes total
Total preparation time: about 2 1/2 hours
Here's how mine turned out:
I have to say I really loved this recipe a lot. I have made it for my family and boyfriend, all of them are eating meat normally and they loved it as well. Of course, when you are used to a classic bolognese, this recipe will taste a little different, but the idea of using dried mushrooms as the meat substitute is really amazing as it even looks a little bit alike. I would certainly encourage every single one of you to try this recipe - omnivore or not. It is worth it!!
Have fun trying!!
